of the force must read and write. Promotion from the ranks is the rule, not the exception. They live in barracks, mess together, and associate but little with the outer world.
The force supports a weekly periodical, called Boletin oficial de La Guardia Civil, first started in 1858. The rules of the corps are arranged in the Cartilla, gambling being entirely prohibited. “The couples engaged in patrolling the roads must walk twelve paces apart from one another, so as not to be both surprised at once.” The rules for protection of persons and property prescribe the proper conduct for every emergency, such as earthquakes, fires, floods, way-farer losing his way, and so on, duly laid down. The cavalry carry heavy dragoon swords of Toledo make, and revolvers and short carbine; the foot-soldiers—for soldiers they are, and trained to act in couples as well as in large bodies,—Remington rifle and bayonet, and sometimes revolvers. The safety of property in Spain may, without exaggeration, be said to depend on this most excellent force. No Civil Guard is allowed to accept a reward, however great be his service to you.
§ 11.—Population and Revenue—Educational Statistics, &c.
Population in 1868, 15,673,248, of whom 3,129,921 knew how to read and write, 705,778 could read only. According to the census for the year 1877, the population of Spain numbers over 16,731,570.
Revenue for the year 1882–1883. This has been estimated (officially) at 760,291,224 pesetas, or francs; the State expenses are estimated (officially) at 792,122,953 pesetas. (See ‘Presupuestos Generales del Estado,’ 1882.)
The Revenue has always been badly collected, and at an enormous cost. Every impediment has been placed in the way of intended investors of capital in the Peninsula. But in spite of every obstacle which successive governments—each (if possible) worse than its predecessor—could throw in the way of Spanish progress, that progress has been most marked during the last 20 years. Since then the population and revenue have increased, and a marked improvement is perceptible in the education of the people.
§ 12.—Hints to Invalids—Climate.
The superiority of the climate of the South of Spain over other regions of Europe has been ably demonstrated by various medical writers.[1] Independently of a more southern latitude, the geometrical configuration of Spain is superior. While the Apennines, the backbone of Italy, stretching N. to S., offer no barrier to northern cold, the sierras of Spain, running E. and W., afford complete shelter to the littoral strips. Free as a whole from malaria, dryness is the emphatic quality of the climate. Tarragona, Murcia, and Malaga, may be pronounced the most favoured winter climate in Europe.
As Spain itself is a conglomeration of elevated mountains, the tree-less, denuded interior, scorching and calcined in summer, keen, cold and windblown in winter, is prejudicial to the invalid; the hygienic
- ↑ See Dr. Bennett’s ‘Climate of the South of Europe.’ ‘Change of Climate,’ &c., by D. J. T. Francis, M.D.
